Book Review: Yosie Levine, Hakham Tsevi Ashkenazi and the Battlegrounds of the Early Modern Rabbinate
BOOK REVIEW Yosie Levine. Hakham Tsevi Ashkenazi and the Battlegrounds of the Early Modern Rabbinate. London: Littman Library, 2024. xiv, 266. Reviewed by Bezalel Naor Yosie Levine has tackled the enigmatic figure of Hakham Tsevi Ashkenazi (1658-1718), a man whose title alone beggars the imagination. At first blush, the terms “Hakham” and “Ashkenazi” present an oxymoron. The term “Hakham” is generally reserved for Sephardic sages. (An outlier would be Hakham Isaac Bernays of Hamburg [1792-1849], but that is a discussion…
